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February 13, 2018

Age brings lots of things and some are not so pleasant. Among the obvious things, it is harder to exercise. When you are older there are things you should not eat unless you are willing to suffer the consequences. As you age it is even more of a challenge to roll out of bed early every morning. That is especially true for those of us still working well into our Social Security years.

Even some of the things that I love to do are more challenging. I find myself lacking the desire to take my boat out every week. That is certainly the case when the water is cold. Now I am a fair weather boater. It also takes a lot longer to accomplish what I want to get done.

Mowing the yard, going for a beach hike, doing some kayaking and biking all in the same day is unlikely to happen. Even the less physical things are more challenging. I used to write a lot in the evenings before bed. Now that writing in the evening is far less frequent. Certainly building things is more of a planned exercise than a fire drill to see how fast I can get it done.

However, there is one great blessing that comes with age and that is patience. As you get older you learn that while the world seems to move at breakneck speed, not everything requires an instant response. Age teaches you that sometimes sitting back and observing things is the right thing to do. If you believe every email that you get, we are obviously in a do or die struggle for fundraising almost every evening.

I ignore most of the fundraising emails and all of the fundraising telephone calls. I rarely answer a telephone call unless I recognize the person calling me. If an unknown caller has an important message, they will leave a message and I can call them back. The unrecognized callers rarely leave a message.

Our country is potentially on the brink of a constitutional crisis, but we are not there yet. We have survived over a year of attacks on honesty and our institutions. Yet I cannot let myself be worked up into a frenzy every day. It is impossible to sustain that level of energy until the mid-term elections.

I believe that our institutions will survive this formidable attack. I was around for the sixties so I have seen my fair share of turmoil and change. Life has taught me that those in power often overplay their hand and that the great pendulum of power held by the people can easily swing back and quickly wipe out those who have threatened this country. Many have given their lives that our country can be a beacon of hope in the world. That kind of firm foundation cannot be so easily destroyed by those who daily trample on the truth.

Having patience is more than lack of action, it means waiting until you know you are doing the right thing. It also means picking your battles and planning for a true victory, not just a symbolic one. It means learning the real facts and being willing to stand up for them when the lines between good and evil are clearly drawn. Perhaps patience is just another element of the learning that seems to come easier as you age. We are not marching in the streets every day but a cleansing tidal wave of good is building all the same.

September 13, 2017

We live in a society where many people think they can say or do whatever they want even if it harms others. They actually do not care since they have an agenda where they and perhaps a friend or two who refuse to see them in anything but a favorable light are the only ones who matter.

While they might protest that they are doing things for the good of others, a close examination of their rhetoric and more importantly their actions leads only to the conclusion that whatever they are doing is designed to benefit or entertain themselves and everyone else can go to hell.

Almost all of us come in contact with these people who love to quote facts, rules, and precedents as long as they support their intended outcome.

Most of these folks tend to try to get their way by shouting louder than others, trying to control the opinions of others, and threatening or insulting those that do not agree with them. If they are in government of any form, the last thing they want to do is to face the people whom they represent in a meeting.

Few of these folks are truly interested in a process that will actually solve a problem unless it resolves it in their favor. They attempt to bully anyone involved in issues and end up looking like a toddler having a temper tantrum.

They are the self-proclaimed experts on everything and of course their way of looking at things is the only way to look at anything. True facts are just confusing.

I have spent a life standing up for what I believe whether it was equal funding for the education of children in rural New Brunswick or running an HOA by following the rules.

Over the years I have seen people threaten to do this or that if I did not do something. Experience has taught me that you can only live your life to your own standards if you refuse to bend those core principles you have chosen for your life. The only response to a threat is to stiffen your resolve.

What surprises me most is that so many of these scorched earth people who will do or say anything to get their own way, think that the horrible things they say and do have no impact. They might attack your reputation one day and act like nothing has happened the next day. They are oblivious to the consequences of their actions and part of that is because people are afraid to stand up to them.

One of telling signs of these people who sow discord is accusing the very people trying to solve a problem of sowing discord. It is their fall back position of choice. While oblivious to the discord they have created, they are quick to point fingers at those hoping to resolve issues.

Their inexcusable behavior creates waves of consequences that wash over us all. Often we end up having to do things that we would never had done if we were dealing with normal people who care for people besides themselves.

It is long past time that we sentence people like this to life without real contact with the rest of us. If society is going to survive, why do we coddle those that seek to destroy it? Certainly we should stop electing them to any positions of authority.

If your agenda is to take advantage of the rest of us while you get your way, why should you expect me to be so stupid as to help you do it? It has never worked on me in the past and is unlikely to do so in the future so just save your threats for someone who has not seen it all before.

Remember if your role has responsibilities that effect me, count on me to hold you accountable if you do not fulfill those duties.

March 28, 2017

During the nine to ten months of warm water, I am often out on the White Oak River in my kayak just before sunset. I love the light at that time of day. Sometimes when the fish are not there and the currents are forgiving, I can get a degree of focus that is hard to achieve anywhere else. Out on the water it is easy to forget about politics or some of the pettiness that we often face in life.

However, you cannot live your whole life on the river in a kayak and sometimes it is an interaction with another person that provides you with the exact moment of clarity that you need. Recently lost in thought I was hiking down a street in our subdivision. A neighbor saw me and asked me what was wrong? I guess that I did not have my usual smile on my face. I thought for only a second before saying, "Nothing is wrong, have a nice day."

I said nothing was wrong because just then I had one of those moments of clarity and I saw everything from a different perspective. On one level there was plenty wrong and obviously there was enough out of whack to have robbed me of my smile. Yet in that precise moment I knew that my current challenges were nothing compared to what many are facing and to what I have lived through in the past. I knew it was time to count my blessings, my health, the health of my wife, our children, our grandchildren, the roof over our head, the food in our garden and on our table and even our eleven year old cars that are running well.

Among those blessings, I include the friends I have made from Mike, my buddy in grade school and in Boy Scouts, to dear friends from McCallie and Harvard. Then there are those special people from New Brunswick, both in Tay Creek, Fredericton, and Carleton County and our wonderful friends in Halifax, Nova Scotia who also touched our lives in ways that I appreciate more and more as the years disappear from the calendar. I cannot forget the friends in Columbia, MD, Southwest Virginia and our families with deep roots in North Carolina's Surry and Yadkin Counties. New friends find their into our lives all the time but as we get older, unfortunately, some of the very people who have touched our lives the most disappear but are never forgotten.

During that split second moment of clarity, I also knew that even the things which were trying to drag me down would not in the end impact those things that are truly important. I have chosen a way to live that does not focus on material things but does require me to stand up at times for what is right. I also try to live my life so that the places and people that I touch are better for my presence or involvement. Sometimes it is impossible because there are people that thrive on making the lives of others hard. I cannot help or agree with everyone but that will not stop me from trying to be a good neighbor. Sometimes I have heeded the call to fight for what is right even when others would not, but that is who I am. While that has its own consequences, I have always been able to live with my own successes and failures in those battles because I draw my strength from something far more powerful.

Truly in the end it does not matter how life's little battles play out. Some will be won and more than a few lost. However, my will to continue will always be sustained by the love of my family, friends from over the years, our loving church families and the grace of God. One day all these challenges will only be fading memories lost in the shadows. Other more powerful memories, the births of our children, the moments they made us proud, the smiles of our grandchildren, holding the hand of my mother in her last moments, the love from our pets or the soft touch of my wife will I hope consume my consciousness.

I can only hope that when my time comes that I have as wonderful a last moment of clarity as one of our church family did just before she passed away recently. If I have the story correct, this wonderful lady whose daughter was in the room looked up as an attendant at the hospice walked into her room. While the daughter was leaving for the night she said to the attendant, "This is my daughter, she loves me and I know she knows that I love her too." Those were her last words before she died.

We cannot hope for more than that. Knowing that you are loved by your family and that your family loves you is what should sustain you. The rest including all the hurtful words you might have endured are just not that important in the end. Thanks for the moment of clarity Frances.

November 04, 2016

This is the twelfth anniversary of my first post on View from the Mountain. I no longer live on a mountain. I spend my free time walking the edges of Raymond's Gut marsh pictured in the post. It is just off a large coastal river that is part of North Carolina's Crystal Coast.

Our mountaintop provided plenty of inspiration but it was not the reason that I spent time sharing my thoughts. Today as in the past I write because putting words together helps me understand my interaction with the world around me. I never hide from my own words and sometimes I am lucky enough to learn that perhaps I said something that helped someone over a hurdle. Most of all, my words help me remember my place in the universe. I never forget that the marsh like the world or the universe can quickly consume you if you are not careful. I am grateful to live in a beautiful area that inspires me as much as the mountains once did.

The following words are adapted from a post that I did over ten years ago. Somehow they are very appropriate in the closing days of the 2016 presidential election. I was surprised how relevant the decade-old words are today....

I think we often get too caught up in the concept of independence. "Freedom from control or influence of another or others" does not mean that we should not take seriously our responsibility to others. In fact the only way we can truly remain independent is through the help of others.

What has made this country strong is that fabric of friendship, mutual respect, and cooperation between neighbors. That fabric of society was easier to find and nurture in rural societies, but I know from living in small towns like Mount Airy, NC that a city street does not preclude you from having great neighbors with shared interests and values. Here in suburbs and subdivisions of the South, you will still find that great feeling of being able to count on your neighbors as friends. As I read the stories bemoaning the loss of friends in modern society, I feel really sad for people who have no one to confide in but a radio talk show host. I am glad that I am not in their shoes.

We may not have any family where we live but we have lots of friends that are almost as close as family. Our real family is not so far away that we cannot get in a car and go for an overnight visit. While some are complaining about electronic communications destroying friendships, I would argue otherwise. I talk to friends by email or instant messaging every day. I would likely never find the time to send them a written letter. Are we closer because of it? I would answer yes. Then there is the self selecting group of friends that I have found on the Internet. We share some common values, and actually I have found some enduring friendships that started on the Internet.

Yet I do think we have become a society where many are absorbed by their own self importance. I see it in little things which individually mean almost nothing, but when taken together they show that we need to refocus on the people around us and not just what is good for us individually.

I see people cruising in the left lane of the highway completely oblivious to the line of traffic building up behind them or those who run a red light because their time is more important than the lives of others. Then there are people who can only see how something will impact them not how it will help someone else. They refuse to see another point of view, the big picture, or how the other guy will be hurt because of their selfishness. That's not the way our country was built, but it is something that threatens to tear up our great country.

A few years ago, a friend died. I did not have the opportunity to say good bye to that friend. It caused me to recommit to finding people who had been important in my life. I have made a few car trips to Ronceverte, WV, because that is the only way to visit with my high school Latin teacher who has yet to go beyond the telephone in the world of electronics. We continue to make trips to Mount Airy, NC and Yadkin County, NC just to visit friends and family. We cannot spend lots of time with them, but we do keep that web of friendship and family alive. Sharing our lives with others has given us strength to do things we never would have done by ourselves.

It is the same way with our country. We gain strength from each other, especially when we help each other. When someone tries to tear down another person because they do not agree with them, they are hurting more than just one person. Their attacks weaken that web of interdependence which independence has given us the freedom to create.

I am glad we have the independence and freedom to be interdependent.

My first lessons came from family, church, and Boy Scouts. Failure was not an option because I would have been letting down those who gave so much for me just to have the opportunities that so many others never had. That drive to succeed got me through military school at McCallie, some turbulent years at Harvard and over a decade of farming in the spruce covered hills of Canada.

Somehow the people I met along the way and the lessons I learned prepared me well for an even tougher journey in Apple's corporate swamp. Even there I found great friends. As my wife is fond of saying, there are good people everywhere, you just have to find them. I have never stopped looking for the good people because without the help of all those wonderful, caring people throughout my life, my independence would not have gotten me very far.

We all have different skills as I used to tell my team at Apple, the challenge is finding how we can use those different strengths to be successful together.

July 05, 2016

As I was out fishing from my kayak in the White Oak River the other day, it occurred to me that no-wake zones offer a good metaphor for looking at some of the changes in our society. I had started out in pretty calm water.

By the time all the boats had zoomed around me, the water was pretty stirred-up.

Most of us who use powerboats slow down around kayaks but not the folks on the river this Fourth of July. Non-boating people might not understand the meaning of a no-wake zone, but the North Carolina Wildlife Resources site provides a good definition.

A “No Wake Zone” is an area within which vessels are required to travel at idling speed – slow speed that creates no appreciable wake.

A boat or watercraft does not have to be large to create a damaging wake. Wakes generated by one watercraft can amplify wakes generated by another. Wakes can turn over small boats, swamp kayaks or cause damage to fragile shorelines. Our inlet, Raymond's Gut, has no-wake signs in it. They were required by the permit that authorized the dredging of the inlet and the building of the marina. It took nearly ten years to get the signs put up. They obviously were not very important to our developers. The signs now that they are up suffer the same fate of many signs. Some people pay attention to them and others completely ignore them when they feel like it.

In essence a no-wake zone is created to protect, support, perhaps nurture, and even give time for recovery. Our inlet has a no-wake zone because it is a fragile ecosystem. Wakes could cause erosion of the marsh shorelines and make it harder for oysters, an important part of life in the marsh, to survive.

Childhood when I was growing up in the fifties and sixties was a no-wake zone. We wandered the woods around our homes in Lewisville, North Carolina without much concern. There were no organized sports, little television, or nothing like computers, smartphones or tablets to keep us from entertaining ourselves. We built forts, damned creeks, and wore ourselves out by the end of each day. We made friends and had our own little world. While we interacted with adults, most of the time their world and our world were somewhat separate. We did not worry about being kidnapped or having our schools turn into mass murder scenes. We got a chance (a no-wake zone) to be children and to experience the creativity and growth that can be childhood when it takes place without a lot of adult worries or responsibilities. Not everyone was as lucky as we were.

I remember other no-wake zones when I was growing up. Certainly dinner was something of a no-wake zone. Everyone tried to sit down around a table, have a meal and some polite conversation. You ate what was put in front of you and learned to accept it. School was definitely a no-wake zone. Parents were not interested in challenging teachers. You were expected to do your own homework except there was not much homework in those days.

When someone died another no-wake zone sprang up. Signs were put up in the roads about slowing down for a funeral. If you met a funeral procession, you pulled over and let it pass. People cooked food and took it to the family who had lost a loved one. An effort was made to help the family as much as possible and to give them time to recover from their loss. People even lowered their voices when talking about death. Another no-wake zone that is perhaps hard to believe in today's partisan climate was the no-wake zone around a presidential election. I can remember hearing family members talking that they had to get behind President Dwight Eisenhower even though they had not voted for him. He was president and deserved our support even if we did not vote for him. It was the essence of majority rule. The political battle was expected but then people got together for the common good of all.

People also had no-wake zones around their personal lives. They went to work and when they left their place of employment, the work stayed there and did not come home with them. Personal lives also had so no-wake zones. Our family had a rule that you did not call anyone after 9PM on the telephone. You would never have even considered knocking on someone's door during dinner time or have called them before breakfast. Sundays were even no-wake zones because few if any businesses were open on a Sunday.

Our no-wake zones were boundaries that by consensus society respected. Over the years, the lines started to break down. In some instances the culture of me took over. Children's lives became an extension of parents' lives. Instead of letting children be children, it was important for them to try things that their parents might never have done or be better at something than parents might have been. Children's lives became organized then over-organized. It became important that they never taste disappointment. Life was all about always being happy. Lots of things started vying for everyone's attention. In my generation's case, transistor radios might have been one of the first wants that overwhelmed any real need. Then there were television shows. First came Saturday morning shows, then weekly shows. Television showed us that the norms of behavior that ruled us were not written in stone.

The culture of me got enhanced by the world of instant gratification. Whatever I want, I should be able to have whenever I want it. It matters little that my wants might overwhelm and infringe on the lives of others. So here we are in world where the needs of others outweigh common good. We have gone so far that it is out of fashion to care about the common good. The most important thing is to be a winner and for me to get more than my share.

The supposed right of a person on a terrorist watch list to own a weapon is more important than society's right to be just a little safer. The desire to give some tax relief to rich political donors is more important than expanding medical care to the poor in our society. It is more important to keep letting commercial fisherman fish the way they always have than it is to make certain that our fish stocks survive another generation. In country where we have a hard time getting people to vote, why is it important to reduce the number of days when voting is allowed and make it harder to register to vote? This is done in the name of protecting the individual's right to vote but it is clearly done to restrict the right to vote and to keep the same crew in office instead of protecting anyone's right to vote.

The individual has become so important that it is okay to zoom through life's no wake zones because the lives of those around them have lost value. The common good is gone. Greed and the cult of the individual have taken the rest of us prisoner.

As I watched a woman on a jet ski and her daughter on another zoom through the no-wake zone in our inlet on July 4, the thought occurred that besides endangering people with their wakes, they were preventing others in kayaks and least one person fishing from the shore from enjoying what they had chosen to do on a holiday. The two on jet skis did not have give up their desire to go fast, all they had to restrain themselves for three hundred yards after they left the river. It was giving up a little so others could enjoy what they had chosen to do. Unfortunately the inability to have any self restrain won over and the common good was trampled once again.

The essence of the Declaration of Independence is that we are free so we can all live our lives to their fullest potential. We should not be a society of winners and losers. We do not all have to have the same, but we should be a society where no one's happiness is cause of some other person's misery. We should be a society where everyone has a chance to win and those whom by circumstance cannot be successful get a helping hand.

Many of those who reject extending a helping hand to others have built their wealth and power and the backs of others. It is a recipe for destroying our society. It is hard to have a no-wake zone around childhood if children do not have enough to eat, cannot get healthcare, and the sound of gunfire comes from the streets outside their homes instead of the television.